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Companies often use employee satisfaction surveys, or climate surveys, in order to improve employee morale or get a better feel for the current company culture. If you are experiencing high turnover or simply want to increase your employee retention and satisfaction rates, you may be considering implementing an employee survey of your own in your small business. It can be an expensive investment to conduct this type of survey, so you want your employees to actually complete it. There are many ways to encourage employee participation in a company survey.

1.

Hire an external consultant or vendor to conduct the survey. Some employees will be wary of saying something negative about their boss to their boss’s boss or human resources representative. If you truly want honest responses, you need to have an impartial party conduct and manage the survey.

2.

Make a big deal out of the survey. For example, you can hold a large company meeting or party to launch the survey. If you and your management team act as if the survey is very important, then your employees will be more likely to take the time to complete it.

3.

Explain why you’ve decided to conduct the survey in the first place. Rather than asking your employees to add yet another task to their to-do lists, tell them the reasons for it. Be honest, or transparent, with them. For example, you may tell them that you’re doing it because you’ve lost some valuable team members in the past year and you don’t want to risk losing more.

4.

Tell employees how the survey information will be used. For example, you may be considering revamping your management team or you may want to simply get honest feedback about how new information or projects are rolled out, as past initiatives weren’t embraced as much as you’d hoped. Let them know it won’t be a waste of their valuable time to complete the survey.

5.

Make sure the survey is anonymous. If you truly want honest responses, your employees will have to know that their answers will not be used against them in the future in retribution from a bad manager.

6.

Offer some sort of incentive for completing the survey by a set deadline. For example, you could offer a $5 gift certificate to the local coffee shop or a gym bag with the company logo.

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About the Author

Denise Brandenberg has more than 15 years professional experience as a marketing copywriter, with a focus in public relations. She also worked as a recruiter for many years and is a certified resume writer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English.

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Brandenberg, Denise. "How to Encourage Employees to Complete a Satisfaction Survey." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/encourage-employees-complete-satisfaction-survey-21406.html. Accessed 24 May 2019.

Brandenberg, Denise. (n.d.). How to Encourage Employees to Complete a Satisfaction Survey. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/encourage-employees-complete-satisfaction-survey-21406.html